What the Cake !

When there’s Xmas, there has to be cakes. Not the fancy ones we normally prefer round the year, like ‘a little savoury ones’ or the ones lined with exorbitantly priced exotic fruits; but the good old fruit cake. The maximum variation would be plum or chocolate. But get anything fancier, and it will fail miserably at being Christmassy enough.

Fresh from the Oven

If you think i am exaggerating, you must make it a point to check out the cake counters of posh hotels and confectioneries, and very rarely will you find one which stocks up on such Plain Janes at other times. But come Xmas, and all their shelves must invariably boast of their special Xmas fruit cake, hogging the display limelight, along with the yule log or the ginger bread house !

Even grocery shops in Calcutta open a makeshift stall to sell fruit cakes of different sizes and shapes, in red and green tin boxes.
Also, cake mixing ceremony is fast becoming a very popular event, rather than remaining a little preparation done by chefs in their kitchens like any other task.

Cream Rolls and Pastries for the fancy souls

And I think, in this city, the greatest proof of the craze of Xmas fruit cake can be seen at New Market. The queue in front of Nahoum’s seems endless, and their shelves become empty in a blink. Though their medium sized fruit cake loaves, priced at Rs.250, is quite on the expensive side, that doesn’t seem to take a toll on their popularity, even slightly.

As many like me, who throng New Market ever so often, would know, there’s another lane inside the market lined with smaller bakery outlets selling their time-tested goodies at unbelievably low prices. And they too have an extremely busy season during Xmas. Their fruit cakes, however, adorn their shelves, almost at any time of the year. Some of them also make cookies and one can sample a few before making a buy. I especially like their walnut brownies, which are just amply dense and chocolatey, loaded with walnuts and not too sweet. Also, the fact that a jumbo brownie costs a meagre 30 bucks. Now that’s reason enough to pay these bakeries a visit and sample some of their offerings!

Brownies, Marble and fruit cakes are perennial hot sellersMullick’s – One of the lesser known gems of New Market

Smiles on the faces of the shop owners says it all !Brittany’s bakery, not to be confused with the biscuit company by the way !Cookies too are a part of the bargain

( Devpurna, to quote her own words, is a ”Lawyer by day, the quintessential bengali dreamer by night, a foodie since toddler days and oh, an up-cycler on weekends too!